love it!! Dad and I think the pinata you made for Karina is great! It looks like she liked it too. When does she get to whack it? and what's it filled with?
Good to see you're still a goofy bastard Clint. Miss you a lot buddy. Have and enjoy you're life in Honduras. Buena suerte con todo mi amigo, y hola a tu novia (esposa?)!!
ciao,
Matt
p.s. check out my blog Clint. babycowmeat.blogspot.com
Mini U Hey, Clint, what's the deal with those big orange slugs crawlin' on both of your jersey's? YUK! And now your friends and neighbors get to knock the snot of your protege, imagining that it's you. Ouch! But isn't that what hockey's all about?
~eric.
Pinata Clint Take vacation photos of Pinata Clint...! Since he might eventually get "whacked" let him do his "Bucket List" - things to do before he kicks the bucket! Can't wait to see him!
I quote you Clint- I quote you Clint- unique and brave teacher of life; "Random things happen everyday making the unusual quite ordinary." Your gift is recognizing the moment and sharing the beauty with the rest of us. Thank you for your witty moments of reflection! Much love to you and your beautiful bride to be. Hugs to your students.
¡Jajajaja! "a defenseless rabbit clutching his donut" this made me laugh!
And, is Alejandro's tie an example of his sense of humor, or are those things all the rage in Honduras? I just want to know if I need to get one of these . . .
CAN'T WAIT TO VISIT YOUR SCHOOL Clint, I love the pics of the school. That really gives those of us who want to visit a visual of the place we would visit and stay. E-mail me soon so we can make arrangements in Feb. 09!! :)
Janet
My answer to the question: WHAT ARE UR GOALS? well, i have many goals in life.
I have a goal for my family, my studies and for every part of my entire life.
Briefly i can tell you.. that my goal in life is:
be happy and enjoy every day.
Also everything isn´t happiness because if you want to be happy you pass through a sacrifice.
But I´m mentalized that every mistake i commit i will take it as pure knowledge.
Life is full of mistakes.. but we got to learn about them.
maybe what you think is a mistake, for me isn´t.
Greetings..
Roxana
Wonderful Job to all the students!! I just want to begin this memo by saying that I am from Honduras myself; I attended El Alba from Kindergarten to third grade. I am now 27 years old, so that being said it tells you how long that was. I am now living in Houston, Texas and have been in the US for 15 years total; prior to Texas I lived in New York. At any rate, I have been reading this blog for a couple of years now and this is the first time that I see a teacher ( Mr. Holmes) be so involved with the students and wanting to let them reach out and explore their creative minds. Just for the record, GREAT JOB mister....hahaha. (I had to say that.)
Ok, on a serious note, I have to comment on Ruth and Ana, Team Awesome. I enjoyed your writing piece. I have to agree with you two ladies, that lack of respect is what is wrong with Honduras, but not just there, it is everywhere. As I mature, I see how the lack of respect affects every aspect of your everyday life. I agree with you when you say that respect has to be thought in your household. I remember when growing up, if you saw an elderly person or relative of yours automatically one had to say: BENDICION (blessings) and they felt sense of respect. I don’t know if that is practiced still, but in my family we still do, the younger generation, not as much. I guess they feel awkward saying it because it gives them the idea of being old fashioned. Anyways, the above comment is just the gist of how I grew up back then and agreeing with both Ruth and Ana.
The family values and moralities is what determine what type of respect one will carry on in this journey called life. I will keep reading and writing to my fellow Catrachos and keep up the great job to all who share their thoughts.
comment I think is great middle school students have the chance to express this way. And I say that because: 1) I totally relate to the way most of you think at the moment, I mean thinking back when I was your age, and 2) Because like you I am latino from El Salvador and I know Honduras has similar history with the one from my country.
I would just want to encourage you to stay in the school and also wish you all good luck.
Your Essays Queridos Catrachos, estudiantes del maestro Holmes: Greetings to all! You have written some excellent essays. And you have a superb teacher. (I especially admire his enthusiasm for teaching.) NOTE: I'm told there are no paragraphs in this comments-section; so I will attempt to use an indent along with a paragraph mark, like this ¶. Here goes: ¶ I want to help you with your efforts to write essays in English, so I must begin by correcting your teacher's introduction! (We all need to help each other in order to improve.) If we allow the same mistakes to be repeated, or if we continue to make them unknowingly, we will make no progress. Correction is essential. My friend Clint ALWAYS makes this mistake, corrected below, in his blogs, so I must correct him as a friend. -- But why have I waited until now? I've been meaning to do this for weeks! -- It must be, that I've waited so you could enjoy the spectacle of watching your teacher be corrected, for your own instruction and profit. Notice the humility with which he receives correction. (You see, I am confident he will not conceal his need for improvement, as I know that he teaches by example.) Of course, I need correction in order to continue improving, too. ¶ Note: my thoroughly corrected replies to your essays have been forwarded to your teacher for use in class. He has made hardcopies for you. ¶ Clint's essay misused the words your/you're; and to/too. My comments: [So, what's the difference between your and you're? Your is possessive, por exemplo, coche de Usted=your car, also, su coche. You're is a contraction for you are, as in: Usted esta, o Ustedes son. It's like a collision of two words, which always happens in speech, no problem, but looks bad on the page, and provides a mistaken meaning, if not correctly spelled. Mistake #2: to is either transitive, or used to form the infinitive; too is a matter of degree: por exemplo -- demasiado=too much]. Hey, Clint, I really admire your energy and your creativity for teaching. I think it's especially clever to invite the public to correct your students' papers! You're like Tom Sawyer, who said: "What will you give me, if I let you paint my fence?" Well, my Spanish needs loads of help, so please don't hesitate. ¶ Team Playa (Hassiel & Cynthia) comments: You guys have cheated! Much of your material was lifted, word-for-word from Wikipedia. In a college in EEUU (U.S. for the gringos reading this blog), you would have been expelled for this act, without refund of tuition. Game over. I will simply encourage you to do your own work. If you really want to master writing in English, you must practice with desire and discipline. When we cheat, we fool ourselves into thinking we are smarter than we really are. There is a commandment which says 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' In ancient Hebrew, it literally says 'You must not cheat.' (Especially consider that, if you won't cheat on God, therefore you won't be tempted to cheat on your spouse.) Remember, God is all seeing. That's how I caught you cheating. He told me to look. ¶ Roxanna. "Can Everybody have a successful life?" Good effort, Roxanna. I like your outlook, namely: ¡Be Yourself! -- By the way, I know gringos don't generally use upside down punctuation. But I like it. It is one of the brilliant devices of Spanish which should be adopted into English, now that we have keyboards with this ability. The reason? It tells the reader immediately of the nature of the coming sentence, whether a question or an exclamation. This is especially useful on longer sentences. ¶ Andrea: "One of the most Noble Sacrifice." [SacrificeS must be plural, as you are comparing one to MANY; the noun therefore must agree with the many, which is plural] >> [Your quote is not translated for the English reader: "Let's fight today, and the future will belong to us." >> spelling: renound>renowned >> While I admire the observation that we all need to struggle together and within ourselves individually, I want to ask you to think about the nature of collective effort. Yes, man is a social creature like the ants and bees; but trusting leaders is sometimes a huge disappointment. Are you aware that honeybees, when winter arrives, put out all the males to freeze to death? The "common goal" of the hive is to preserve community for the future, by minimizing food consumption, even when they have more than enough to get through winter. This may be wise. But if you happen to be a male bee, you might not like socialism when winter arrives, and the Queen says "all the males must die." You see, male honeybees are raised as needed in the spring, to fertilize the eggs of the queen bee. So, is the queen bee an "honorable, patriotic leader," Andrea? What if you were a male under this system? Would you like this plan? Socialism, like any system, has its many costs. Do you recognize them?]. ¶ Ruth & Ana (Team Awesome): "What is the biggest problem in Honduras today?" [Dear Team Awesome: maybe you need to be renamed Team Gruesome? I'm sure you're only joking about killing people wo won't respect others. But violence is never a solution. Life is a gift from God. Are we qualified to take it away? OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!]. ¶ Gloria: "Skateboarders in Honduras" [Hi, Gloria. Complexion can't be skinny, any more than sound can be green. Perhaps you mean the guys' profile or their form. Complexion is the clarity of the face, or skin.. Skin is piel; skinny is flaco. Also, I want to ask you: since "handsome" is a quality of interest for purposes of parenting -- is skill with a skateboard also a good quality to choose when looking for a mate? If so, why?]. ¶ Michael & Luis (Team Panda Love) "Save the Pandas" I love nature, too, guys. I think you would really enjoy reading a book titled Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. This book won a huge monetary prize. It's a novel about being mentored by a talking gorilla. As silly as this sounds, it is an awesome book. Although I rarely read fiction, I've given away several copies to friends. The author rewrote this book seven times before it was published and recognized as a best seller! That's persistence! ¶ Team PamRam. (an untitled essay about nationalism, which I've titled ¡Proudly Hondos!) [Pam, Ram, Nationalism can be dangerous and costly, but it is also valuable for the esteem of the group. A group that can rise in FIFA as your national team has, could do many great things at home, if you will use many of those same skills in your community. Bravo.]. ¶ Jorge & Julio (Team Gallo) "Cooperation" [Do countries think? Yes, there is a collective intelligence, but "group think" (not a wise thing, in English -- look up the word lemmings, and notice stories about that creature) -- group think is often very mistaken, which is the point you've made. Regarding your English, I want to encourage you guys to simplify your sentence structure. It's like you are building a house, but using too many boards. Economize. Using too many words makes your essay weaker. Think carefully (as you have) but write skinny. A builder who uses too many boards makes less money on the building project. A writer who uses too many words can get lost in his sentences. Read Ernest Hemmingway for a good look at tight writing using few words very effectively.] ¶ Team Tranquilo (Christian & Ricardo, untitled essay about peace) [So, where do you guys get your peace? Here's where I get mine: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." -St John 14:27] ¶ AMIGOS, I've enjoyed reading your papers, and peeking inside your "thinker" [cabeza]. You're getting a good education. Make the most of it. Soon you will be too busy working to keep your lives organized. You may then wish you had time to study and learn, like the good old days of the past, in school. ~eric.
Feedback Feedback on grammar will not be necessary. We will be discussing grammar this week and we will be making the appropriate corrections. Any feedback on how the message effects you would be great. Also, please provide any questions so we can dig deeper into our class discussions and continue this writing exercise.
Digame . . . Just what kind of feedback are you looking for? Exhaustive grammar and spelling? *Gasp* Or did you mean for us to comment on the messages themselves? *** For starters, I'd like to commend Roxanna on her insightfulness. I particularly liked when she said, "We follow others goals and we [prevent] ourselves from learning and achieving the goals that God has assigned for us." I believe this - God gave us all a unique purpose. I speak from my heart on this. Honduras does indeed mean "Deep!" By the way, Roxanna, what goals do you think God has assigned to you? *** And TEAM AWESOME, I agree with you as well that respect is very important. If people could simply respect others - even those that they can't stand - human relations would be greatly improved. But do you really think that the death penalty is the appropriate consequence for disrespect? If you want to know the truth, you weren't far off when you suggested rebirth ;-) The answer is in the heart of each person verdad? *** I'll write some more later. In the mean time, thank you all for sharing your thoughts. Well done everyone!
***Tio
hi Clint.. I finally got back online and I love reading your blogs! I love the huge Sabres poster (i think thats what it is) in your apartment..Congrats on the engagement, I am very happy for you!! Love you, Channie
Being a hockey fan in the heart of Honduras isn't easy. No ice rinks, no vacant parking lots, the streets aren't level and even if they were there is no one else to play with. I try to watch soccer, but it just isn't the same... and baseball is way too boring. Adapting to new cultures is always a challenge. However, I think I have a knack for it. When I spent almost a year living in New Orleans, after the storm, I learned a plethora of effective ways to settle into something new.
First, and most obvious, one needs to embrace the culture that they are living in. Second, it is always ... full info
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love it!!
Dad and I think the pinata you made for Karina is great! It looks like she liked it too. When does she get to whack it? and what's it filled with?